On Tuesday we took our hairy little man back into the clinic and saw another set of clean scans. We are celebrating this week, and again our hearts are collectively moving along. Cade is playing soccer, excelling in school, and putting on all the weight he lost. We are seven months removed from a chemo treatment, and it is wonderful. Our hearts are full, full, full.
It has been so precious to have a curtain pulled back in place over our family life. Thank you for everyone who tuned in each week to pray with us and let our story weave itself into yours. It is humbling to know how many people sat with us and tracked with us. But I have loved returning to normal life, and not having anything update-worthy.
I felt today that maybe it would be helpful to uncover just a little of what these months have meant for us. It is interesting how many people tune in for the tension, and how interested we all feel in the moments of trauma and hurt. But I've never heard of people publicizing the journey to healing.
In a conversation over text with a friend last week about life and pain and healing, I got language for something that feels very "adult" of me to say: life is one long healing from life. Even if people don't have a traumatic event to reference, nobody gets through life without wounding or hurt or disappointment or sadness.
Since our last round of chemo, our last hospital stay, and our first set of good scans, we as a family have embarked on a part of life I didn't know was coming. I never heard healing be publicized like trials. I wasn't familiar with recovery. But I've been as submerged in this portion of the journey as I was inundated with medical terms when Cade was diagnosed. I had no idea that I'd need to know about chemo or radiation or tumors or scans, and I had no idea that I'd need to become familiar with healing and grieving and revisiting and remembering.
In some ways it is tempting to take the past year and bury it. To try and forget and purposefully block things out. But memories won't keep quiet, and pain has a way of finding its way to the surface whether we want it to or not.
I think the misconception for me, at least, was that if people journey through things with faith and in God, they won't need to recover. But I've found myself processing with my people lately about how this feels like emerging (safely and in tact) from a tornado cellar after a massive twister plowed through your front yard. Your house can still be standing. But branches are littering the lawn and your house has some shingles missing and some tiles from your roof got ripped off, and you've got an insurance claim waiting. We made it. We are alive. But the work is just beginning.
I am thankful for friends who haven't just moved on, or rushed us to move on. Friends have listened and counseled and helped me know what to do with all of the debris left over. Painful memories come back, and instead of reminding myself exactly where we are and talking myself out of emotion, I think we have found it cathartic to let the emotion settle in and feel it, before God. At first I thought this was being unfaithful or unthankful, but I'm learning God knows my humanity on a level I don't even realize.
"A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick, He will by no means put out." Isaiah 42:3
He knows I'm just a young mom with a lot of kids and that for the past year we were operating at a level that only He could have furnished and sustained. Chad says it is like stepping out of a Transformer, and going from giant to regular sized again. "We've lost our muchness"as the Mad Hatter says, but I wonder if it's because we don't need it anymore.
Corrie Ten Boom books have been a wonderful trauma counselor for me, and she records a story about how she at one point after prison camp tried to go back and work for the underground rescue system, only to realize all of her covertness had left her. She was no longer operating at the level she had before, because the grace for it was gone. The fight is over for us, and what sustained and fit us then now feels cumbersome and difficult.
A few weeks into healing, I was asking the Lord what was going on in my heart, and why I felt so sluggish and slow. He gave me a very distinct picture of Chad and I in heavy climbing boots in the middle of an open road. They were fine boots. Totally appropriate for climbing, for snow, for ice, but completely useless for an open road. I believe the process for us in this season has been finding a new pair of shoes, and hitting a new stride. What is required in this leg of the life's journey is different.
Healing has meant getting over myself. I'm not as heroic as I wish I were. And I'm more than happy to let God be strong, let God be unchanging, and let God be capable of coping with every hard thing.
I love His friendship in the seasons of life. Good or bad. Hard or easy. He is an all-weather friend. And He has been equipping us in this season just as much as He did in the previous one. For anyone reading who's on the backside of your mountain or trial, I want to offer some solidarity. Healing is beautiful because it is private, and nobody can do it for you. And as one of my very favorite quotes says, "My neediness for God is my honor, not my shame."
It has been so precious to have a curtain pulled back in place over our family life. Thank you for everyone who tuned in each week to pray with us and let our story weave itself into yours. It is humbling to know how many people sat with us and tracked with us. But I have loved returning to normal life, and not having anything update-worthy.
I felt today that maybe it would be helpful to uncover just a little of what these months have meant for us. It is interesting how many people tune in for the tension, and how interested we all feel in the moments of trauma and hurt. But I've never heard of people publicizing the journey to healing.
In a conversation over text with a friend last week about life and pain and healing, I got language for something that feels very "adult" of me to say: life is one long healing from life. Even if people don't have a traumatic event to reference, nobody gets through life without wounding or hurt or disappointment or sadness.
Since our last round of chemo, our last hospital stay, and our first set of good scans, we as a family have embarked on a part of life I didn't know was coming. I never heard healing be publicized like trials. I wasn't familiar with recovery. But I've been as submerged in this portion of the journey as I was inundated with medical terms when Cade was diagnosed. I had no idea that I'd need to know about chemo or radiation or tumors or scans, and I had no idea that I'd need to become familiar with healing and grieving and revisiting and remembering.
In some ways it is tempting to take the past year and bury it. To try and forget and purposefully block things out. But memories won't keep quiet, and pain has a way of finding its way to the surface whether we want it to or not.
I think the misconception for me, at least, was that if people journey through things with faith and in God, they won't need to recover. But I've found myself processing with my people lately about how this feels like emerging (safely and in tact) from a tornado cellar after a massive twister plowed through your front yard. Your house can still be standing. But branches are littering the lawn and your house has some shingles missing and some tiles from your roof got ripped off, and you've got an insurance claim waiting. We made it. We are alive. But the work is just beginning.
I am thankful for friends who haven't just moved on, or rushed us to move on. Friends have listened and counseled and helped me know what to do with all of the debris left over. Painful memories come back, and instead of reminding myself exactly where we are and talking myself out of emotion, I think we have found it cathartic to let the emotion settle in and feel it, before God. At first I thought this was being unfaithful or unthankful, but I'm learning God knows my humanity on a level I don't even realize.
"A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick, He will by no means put out." Isaiah 42:3
He knows I'm just a young mom with a lot of kids and that for the past year we were operating at a level that only He could have furnished and sustained. Chad says it is like stepping out of a Transformer, and going from giant to regular sized again. "We've lost our muchness"as the Mad Hatter says, but I wonder if it's because we don't need it anymore.
Corrie Ten Boom books have been a wonderful trauma counselor for me, and she records a story about how she at one point after prison camp tried to go back and work for the underground rescue system, only to realize all of her covertness had left her. She was no longer operating at the level she had before, because the grace for it was gone. The fight is over for us, and what sustained and fit us then now feels cumbersome and difficult.
A few weeks into healing, I was asking the Lord what was going on in my heart, and why I felt so sluggish and slow. He gave me a very distinct picture of Chad and I in heavy climbing boots in the middle of an open road. They were fine boots. Totally appropriate for climbing, for snow, for ice, but completely useless for an open road. I believe the process for us in this season has been finding a new pair of shoes, and hitting a new stride. What is required in this leg of the life's journey is different.
Healing has meant getting over myself. I'm not as heroic as I wish I were. And I'm more than happy to let God be strong, let God be unchanging, and let God be capable of coping with every hard thing.
I love His friendship in the seasons of life. Good or bad. Hard or easy. He is an all-weather friend. And He has been equipping us in this season just as much as He did in the previous one. For anyone reading who's on the backside of your mountain or trial, I want to offer some solidarity. Healing is beautiful because it is private, and nobody can do it for you. And as one of my very favorite quotes says, "My neediness for God is my honor, not my shame."
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